is it expensive or costly to maintain a small garden?  

When it comes to gardening the only thing we Sri Lankans worry about is the manpower and the time. High expenditure is not necessary unless you are going to do landscaping with sculpture and small ponds and fountains. I do not know much about the climate in the Philipines. But here you can keep something on the ground and just watch it grow. If necessary seeds of a variety of flowers are available at a small cost.

nopes its not at all costly to maintain a small garden n ur backyard.... but to maintain it and keep it green u need to be a hard worker n must ve sum knowledge about plants...... u just have to start with good quality seeds,sow them give ur seeds good manure water them and watch them grow n if u want ur small garden to look nice just buy some nice scultupres and place them in ur garden or try to make sumthing from the waste like rubber tyres it will really help ur garden look nice... i too have a garden in my house and belive me it really looks nice with just a extra hard work put in it

I don't know what kind of garden you are considering. If you grow vegetables, you usually at least get your money back in food. Some things are easy, some are harder. You learn to minimize the amount of work, but I don't spend all that much money. I grow flowers with my vegetables and get alot of joy from my garden.

It depends on what type of plants you use. You can check some gardening website for ideas. In my back yard, I have hostas, lily, azalea because they come back yearly. I usually add one or two perennial plant annually. One of the best time to purchase perennial is fall also the best time to plant is fall. They are usually cheaper in the fall. I buy the small pack annuals at Home Depot etc, and incorporate a few with the perennial.

Actually small gardens are an art form of themselves. Check out some of the Chinese courtyard garden ideas.

They're not expensive provided the plants are healthy, and you don't go overboard on too much work and complexity in the garden.

I suggest:

1. Reliable plants, standard roses, for example, gardenias, geraniums, agapanthus, some of the succulents, and the unkillables like lavender and cottage garden plants.
2. Growing from seed is rewarding, but you need to know how to handle your plants, and annuals will just come and go in a year unless they reseed, which many commercial seed types don't. Some organic sellers have good reseeding plants, much better value.
3. Growing from cuttings is for experts, but if you learn how, you'll save a lot of time and money.

Very important: Flower beds need weeding, and planters and flower pots come in two basic types, excellent and truly lousy.

You can save yourself a lot of trouble using weed mats, and carefully looking around for some of the good planters at markets and garage sales, or if a friend's getting rid of them.

Be careful of all garden chemicals, use strictly as directed, and make sure there are no young kids anywhere near them.

We have had a garden all my life. We started out with a large garden. I mean we planted 250# of potatoes and 1 LB each of corn, green beans, peas and all the other great veggies.
Now that our children are grown and we have moved away from the farm. We still raise a garden. We made raised beds in our back yard. The veggies are so much better than going to the market. We have onions all year long. We have winter onions in winter and several other varietys in summer and fall. We raise rhubarb from early spring till after the first frost in fall. The raised beds were a litted expensive to make but we wanted them raised for several reasons.
One being the ground warms up faster in a raised bed. That is important here in West Virginia.
Two being as we age we are afraid that we wont be able to bend as much so this will be easy to work and gather the harvest. I highly reccomend a garden. It is very rewarding and you will take so much pride in your garden. We live in the country and everyone is poor here. Everyone also has a garden to save on grocery bills

Nope i dont think so.. Its better you own a gud garden beside your home.. If u have space otherwise some other place you make but i think its a better way to protect our environment by planting new plants and treees..!!

It all depends really on size and what type of plants etc. Just start small and go from there, be honest with what you think you can maintain -- thats the most important thing to consider I think. I don't know if you are talking of a flower garden or vegetable garden, if you are interested in growing your own vegetables I recommend you look at the book called "Square foot Gardening" by Mel Bartholome, I use it as a guideline for my Vegetable gardening. Vegetable or Flower gardening can be done in individual containers like pots or window boxes too. Good Luck -- May your "Green Thumb" bring you much happiness! :)

You don't mention what kind of garden you'd be thinking about. Vegetable, annual, perennial, English style. For flowering plants that will come up year after year, perennials can't be beat! Although they can be costly when buying established ones in gallon or larger containters, you can find great deals on more 'infant' plants on places like e-bay and buy in bulk. Just make sure you check the sellers feedback, first. The saying with perennials is: The first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps, the third year it leaps! For contant summer color, mix in some annuals.

Price is determined by plants and labor. Less labor increases the cost. An example. You can take a cutting from a $200 tree. If you supply the labor you can then get it to root. By taking cuttings you can save a lot if you are willing to do the work.

It is all about what you want. There are a lot of cheap plants. Usually the less expensive the more maintenance it requires. I have a client to has me trim her barberry shrubs 3 to 4 times a year. Labor is the bi-product of planting them. They are all over the place here. The do it yourself people see them in other people's yard so not knowing what they are getting themselves into buy them or worse buy them only because they cost less.

I say buy what you want. Do not buy plants because of the price.